They're done. Apple and Samsung have each given their closing arguments in the epic patent trial over whether the South Korean mobile maker infringed on Cupertino's iPhone patents. For the nine members of the jury, however, the next phase of the ordeal has only just begun.
Weighing the three weeks of testimony to decide …

If Samsung wins....

Re: was all about? [icon]

You need some legal grounds to get compensation of billions. "jail-free-card" is not a legal term and the case is not criminal to talk about 'jail' - the wording is just dumb and I'd be insulted if I were in the jury.

Re: was all about? [icon]

I still don't see the answer. Get out of jail free, what does that mean?

It took Apple five years to think of rounded rectangles? Samsung were in the smartphone market for years before johnny-come-lately Apple, the idea that this is now spun as Samsung coming later is ludicrous. But with the widespread myth of "Apple invented smartphones" (even though the first Iphone was a dumb phone - couldn't do apps), I worry how this trial will go. Selecting from a grid of icons is how phones (and computers in general) have done things for years, even bog standard feature phones from 2004 or so.

Even if it was the case that Samsung had intentionally tried to make it look like Apple's device (for which the evidence seems non-existent, both in how they don't look similar other than what you would expect for phones, and given the evidence that they were working on such designs earlier, and that other companies had already produced similar phones before Apple), their argument is still ludicrous - it suggests that that's the only hard thing about making a smartphone. As if Apple spent 5 years deciding about rounded rectangles, and drawing icons, and all Samsung had to do was copy that, and hey presto, you have a smartphone (or dumb phone, if you're copying Apple's). All the hard work in developing the phone hardware, and marketing it to people, which was done by companies like Samsung years earlier, for Apple to take advantage of, is apparently irrelevant. I myself just made myself an original Iphone copy in my spare time, all I had to do was copy it!

Re: was all about? [icon]

Pains me to say it but I really think Samsung really went to far in copying Apple. At one point they were so blasé I almost thought they were on drugs, even their advertising was all about Apple. What were they thinking?

Hope the outcome will give some breathing space to really creative companies like Sony who have struggled to get into the market, even if they have much nicer and original designs than anyone else. Plus they already make the best cameras for all the top phones!!

I was very happy to see the latest news about Somy collaborating with Google to bring AOSP to their phones. Samsung doesn't care about AOSP, they put the best stuff into their own flagship phone while Nexus gets the second choice. Fingers crosses this will change things for the better.

Sony?

A curse on both their houses. Apple for iTunes and other control freakery in their overpriced hardware . Samsung for their unsavoury corporate history and (I gather) for messing with Android on their phones.

Sony seem to have learned the lesson of their rootkit PR disaster. Their MP3 players are DRM free -- and drag and drop, so infinitely preferable to iPods.

What I said was.....

"Hope the outcome will give some breathing space to really creative companies like Sony"

You really think that will be the outcome if Apple win?

It's Android that has allowed lots of companies to make good smartphones without worrying about creating an entirely new platform. It's also Android that allows compatibility - so if you like Sony, why does it matter if their market share is small? Buy a Sony device and enjoy it - and because it's Android, you still get the software support as the largest platform. And if Sony give up on phones, you can still stick with the same platform, and easily transition all your software and data, when you move to a new Android phone from a different company.

A win for Apple is just a win for Apple, not Sony. Harm to Android makes it even harder for companies like Sony. It's thanks to Apple that we still have loads of companies only producing "apps" to access their websites and services for the minority of Apple phone users, and not the more popular platforms (Symbian, and now Android).

And if Apple succeed with trivial patents, why would they stop with Samsung? If Sony gain market share, they'll be just as much a target, especially if they use Android too. Nokia have probably only survived attention as they have plenty of real phone patents that could presumably destroy the Iphone if they pulled the plug on them.

2009, years after mp3 players became mainstream - so that's pretty late. But glad to see it's no longer there.

The problem is that even without DRM, it's a pain to transfer stuff. Trying to play stuff from an Ipod on another computer just results in seeing the garbage scrambled filenames. On my Sansa, this just works. Even if we tried installing Itunes, we were unsure if this would result in the Ipod "syncing" with the new machine, and generally messing things up. I'm glad that my Galaxy Nexus (and my earlier Nokia 5800) also work in a sensible way, allowing drag and drop, and not scrambling the filenames to its own format.

You've always been able to play non-DRM'd music on the iPod

Anything you acquired elsewhere or ripped from CD using iTunes wasn't DRM'd. Only stuff you bought from the iTunes Store, and that was a condition of sale by the record labels. It wasn't even that hard to scrape off.

iPod hardly a DRM machine

The iPod has played DRM-free MP3 files since the very first model. iTunes has always managed these files just fine, ripping them from CDs nicely. The only DRM in iTunes was in songs bought through the online store, at the insistence of the record labels, and the terms of this DRM were more liberal than those of competitors. In 2009, Apple was the first major company to drop DRM from its online music store.

Re: What I said was.....

Re: What I said was.....

'The dash implies a new thought.'

When I learnt English, my teachers taught that the full stop punctuation indicated a new thought.

Neither statement is correct.

A punctuation mark in English is a signifier in a natural language. Like all such, it is ambiguous and contextual, and may indicate many things - including different things to different readers. To believe that any mark of punctuation in a natural language indicates one thing and one thing only is to operate under a terribly naive understanding of language. (It's what I sometimes call "handbook writing" - following a bunch of simplistic rules, of the sort that appear in writing handbooks, which do not accurately describe the problem domain nor provide good advice for achieving acceptable results.)

More specifically, in this case: even under the most broadly accepted principles of preferred usage and grammatical interpretation in modern English, both the "full stop" or "period" mark and the dash may be used to delimit independent clauses. Typically, adjacent independent clauses in the same paragraph are assumed to represent a continuation of the same line of thought, but to express a different independent statement in that line. However, the dash may also be used to delimit dependent clauses which modify a nearby independent clause (and so probably not a "new thought", though that's not a term of art in English grammar), and all of these principles may yield to style, which often deviates from canonical form for effect.

Re: Fair trial?

Re: Fair trial?

Ipad = tablet computer, not invented by Apple

Iphone = smartphone, not invented by Apple

You have to look past the branding, yes Apple did produce the iphone and ipad, no one disagrees with that, but as far as they are concerned they invented the whole space, did they innovate and make desirable product, yes I think so, have they marketed them well, yes they have.

Thye have taken concepts already out there and made them to many better, that is what Apple does well. They however cannot expect there to not be similar products coming to market, thats how it works, anyone would think they were struggling to make money!

Re: Fair trial?

Re: Fair trial?

An exactly valid comparison since Apple aren't claiming to have invented the smart phone and tablet PC either. In case you hadn't noticed the trial was about copying cosmetic designs, packaging and certain technical patents. Non of that prevents others from designing phones or tablets, just like others can design vacuums.

Re: Fair trial?

if Dyson had sued Hoover or Electrolux for making devices that look like a vacuum cleaner - then it would be a valid comparison.

Besides, Apple effectively copied and improved on several features already on the market, and packaged them in one device. That is precisely what Samsung (and now several others have done). If Apple's case is valid, then every one from 2002 (Palm, Nokia, Samsung, Sony, LG et al) have an equally valid case against Apple for exactly the same nonsense.

Can I claim a design patent on the above paragraph? Nobody has put those words together in that order before.

Re: Fair trial?

As an aside, I'm amused when people talk about the Iphone "being invented" or being an "invention" - as if comparable to say the invention of the smartphone, or another generic product. Also it conjures up the image of Steve Jobs sitting around in his garage, then suddenly having an "Aha!" moment, as he hammers out an Iphone - as opposed to phones being the culmination of large amounts of different research and technologies.

Re: Fair trial?

@soldinio - move the goalposts much?

Your original claim that it wasn't a valid comparison because Dyson hadn't claimed to invent the vacuum cleaner. When it was pointed out that Apple weren't making an equivalent claim you moved the goalposts.

Dyson didn't claim infringement on their design patents not because they didn't have them, but because Hoover didn't copy them.

The point of the trial is to determine if Apple's designs are protectable and infringed. Best let the jury, who have heard all the evidence, work that out.

Re: @soldinio - move the goalposts much?

That's the over simplification that Samsung would have you believe. The patent office and the courts don't believe that the sum total of Apple's design is a flat black rectangle with rounded corners, and you certainly wouldn't need 8 drawings to show that. The Galaxy Tab 10.1N is also a flat black rectangle with rounded corners, just like the 10.1, but it is considered not to infringe while the 10.1 does.

"Apple took five years to bring this revolution to us,"

Re: "Apple took five years to bring this revolution to us,"

Yep. Some how it took a company making phones for a living (for how many decades?) only a couple of months to change their current gen phones into one a bit more stylish. The company that had never made a phone before took 5 years worth of planning.

I sure the jury would expect it to be the opposites, right? It is opposites day?

"referring to the smartphone market that began with the iPhone launch"

Indeed - though you'd expect the Apple lawyer to be biased, but I'm shocked by the Register's ignorance, which isn't part of Lee's quote:

"Lee said, referring to the smartphone market that began with the iPhone launch.

Um, right. Leaving aside that the first Iphone wasn't a smartphone (couldn't run apps) - the smartphone market existed years before. It's bigger now, but there's been continual growth before and after Apple, and if you look at sales, the main contribution of the market was coming from Symbian and Android. When the Iphone was released, Nokia were selling tens of millions of smartphones a year, whilst the Iphone's share was tiny - is that market meant to have sprung out of nothing mid-2007? Not to mention BlackBerry, and even Windows Mobile was selling more than Apple. When the market grew, most of this growth was due to the introduction of Android, with Apple playing no significant part above anyone else.

Then there's the point that smartphone is a marketing term, with no objective difference to feature phone. By 2004, even bog standard phones were doing Internet and apps. This was mainstream - in 2004.

Unless this is sarcasm on the Register's part - it's hard to tell when it comes to Apple.

Re: "referring to the smartphone market that began with the iPhone launch"

>"Lee said, referring to the smartphone market that began with the iPhone launch.

>Um, right. Leaving aside that the first Iphone wasn't a smartphone (couldn't run apps) - the smartphone market >existed years before. It's bigger now, but there's been continual growth before and after Apple, and if you look at >sales, the main contribution of the market was coming from Symbian and Android.

I think what he means is the market that may have been kick-started by the launch of the iPhone (much like the tablet market was tiny before the launch of the iPad). At the very least, I think you'll find that none of the contribution to that market was coming from Android as the first handset (the G1/HTC Dream) didn't launch until the end of October 2008.

In fact, the iPhone itself has never had that much of a market share, but I think it's difficult to argue that the coverage of the device hasn't had an overall effect in awareness of smartphones and probably resulted in the market moving from corporate-only to mainstream.

In case you care, these figures are from Gartner:

Worldwide sales:

2006 - 80 million

2007 - 122 million (3 million iPhones)

2008 - 139 million (11 million iPhones)

2009 - 173 million (25 million iPhones)

2010 - 597 million (46 million iPhones)

2011 - 1,775 million (you get the picture)

Not forgetting that the original iPhone didn't go on sale until June 2007, was only available on one carrier in one country, it's hardly surprising the sales were relatively low. That said, you can see the total market pretty much double in size over that 18 months to the end of 2008.

You can argue that this may have been inevitable, but as we don't have a control-planet where the iPhone never went on sale to compare with, both arguments (that it did or didn't have an effect) are valid.

Anecdotally, I was the only person in my group of friends/family/colleagues who had a smartphone prior to 2007. By the end of 2008 almost everyone was asking me if the iPhone was any good and if they should get one (how the F. would I know, I don't have one). By the end of 2009 almost all of those people had a smartphone of some kind (not all iPhones). So from a personal perspective, I'd be quite comfortable saying that on balance, I think it kick-started the consumer market and yes, Android has made it the size it is today.

too easily shocked

If the iPhone "shocked the world" then the world is easily shocked. If anyone is really shocked by a rectangular piece of metal and plastic which shows magic pictures and talks, then they either just emerged from a life in the jungle without any other human contact or they have the mind of an imbecile.

You might want to talk to the directors of RIM

They didn't believe that Apple could meet the claims that they made when they launched the iPhone. Android changed its design direction. There was quite a large upheaval in the mobile business following its launch.

Re: too easily shocked

Re: too easily shocked

...did you not use phones before the iPhone or something?

The closest thing there was was the HTC TyTN in 2006 (which Samsung copied to make the F700) which had a horrible touch screen (non-capacitive) and a slide-out keyboard which made the thing really thick and weighty and running the extremely clunky Windows Mobile with Microsoft's ActiveSync. (I still have one in a drawer). It was certainly a chick-repellant. In this market, Blackberry cleaned up by providing more svelte devices with push email as they realised that the killer app was instant messaging and practically cornered that market - a classic case of function over form. Blackberry supplied their own servers which integrated with Exchange Server (reportedly horrible to set up and maintain - I never had the pleasure) just to provide this service.

Let's get this straight - using something like a TyTN screamed 'NEEEERRRRDDDDD' and was NOT 'cool' or trendy at all. Apple released the iPhone and suddenly there was a smart phone that normal people wanted to actually use, because it worked, it was easy to use and it looked cool.

If you want proof of success simply look at the share price of RIM and Apple. Apple make more from the iPhone than Microsoft would cost to buy

It doesn't matter how much you or anyone else tries to rubbish the iPhone, these are facts. It DID change how the world looks at phones.

Re: too easily shocked

Yes the iphone was and is a huge success and caused a big change in the market but

not because of patentable design or technical innovations.

This was a marketing success.

Apple took a hugely successful and fashionable product with an existing fan base (the ipod) and added the ability to make phone calls.

Lots of existing phones already played music but it turns out that people would rather buy a really good music player with a crap phone function than a good phone with a crap music function. Sure it had to look nice but I doubt the success was just because it had rounded corners.

Good and insightful reading of the market that everyone else has tried to copy but not patentable.

Re: too easily shocked

The TyTN was not the cloest to the iPhone - The HTC Artemis was (Also branded as XDA Orbit) - this was the keyboardless version, had a few buttons at the bottom (not just one) and was mostly controlled by the touch screen (i still have mine in a draw) it was also launched in November 2006 BEFORE the iPhone in January 2007?...

it had all of the features of the iPhone and more and was pretty easy to use. The only improvement that the iPhone made was to have the screen flush with the surround to make it easier to touch the very corners of the screen - this improvement is probably nothing to do with Apple though as it was a change in manufacturing processes that allowed it - they just picked a newer design screen.